In 2017, the Contextual Safeguarding programme (CSP) began partnering with local authorities to begin testing the Contextual Safeguarding (CS) framework in practice. This project was the first systematic attempt at evaluating the extent of the programme’s reach and impact. The Reach and Impact (R&I) workstream aimed to evidence the value that the CSP adds in terms of influencing policy and practice in response to extra-familial harm (EFH). Below is one of the case studies from the Reach and Impact Project. This case study describes how Contextual Safeguarding has influenced local systems and practice to improve the lives of young people experiencing or at risk of extra-familial harm. Names and some details have been changed to preserve young people’s anonymity.
What was the vision for Contextual Safeguarding?
Leicestershire is a landlocked English County in the East Midlands. A senior manager within a children’s social care team reviewed data across a five-year period on the links between missing episodes and child exploitation. Awareness of the Contextual Safeguarding (CS) approach had increased, alongside recognition of the need to intervene in contexts beyond the home where young people are at risk of exploitation. There is a vision for a consolidated CS offer across the service, to include the standard use of tools to identify contextual risk, and targeted support for young people to reduce vulnerability to extra-familial harm (EFH).
What has been put in place?
Leicestershire and Rutland Safeguarding Children Partnership (LRSCP) and Leicester Safeguarding Children
Partnership Board have developed multi-agency partnership arrangements. The joint business plan priorities the introduction of CS as a key priority to prevent child exploitation across Leicestershire County, the borough of Rutland and Leicester city. A Strategic Partnership Board provides governance for partnership arrangements and includes a Vulnerability Executive that has strategic oversight of local partnership responses targeting EFH.
Three specialist hubs within children’s services are informed by the CS framework. These are the vulnerability (domestic abuse), child sexual exploitation (CSE) and child criminal exploitation (CCE) hubs. The dedicated CSE hub work with young people at risk of exploitation through 6 or 12-weekly early help, preventive programmes. The team are piloting a peer assessment tool to plan multi-agency child welfare-led responses. Direct work involves wraparound individual support with chosen lead professionals and group-based support delivered by the team and relevant multi-agency professionals. A CCE hub has been set up following the CSE hub practice model. The hubs hold weekly meetings to identify young people coming through the system identified at risk of EFH, so that preventative work can be planned between the relevant hub and youth services.
New structures have been put in place for the management of child safeguarding referrals, with screening and
assessment processes to identity extra-familial risks and contexts of concern. Monthly and weekly strategy meetings have been introduced to discuss locations considered a target for the exploitation of children. Detached youth workers work with children in these areas to talk about their experiences, which then informs safety planning and multi-agency responses. An out of hours response team situated within local police stations mean that CSE and CCE locality teams and the police respond to incidents as they occur. This provides opportunity for the teams to offer immediate support to young people that have been found missing or have been spoken to or arrested by police.
What were the challenges?
Staff turnover, particularly within the police is challenging as it requires additional time resource to re-build these relationships. To help overcome this challenge, practitioners within the exploitation hubs have developed links with the police-led, multi-agency problem solving groups and neighbourhood policing teams. Current information systems do not effectively record all indicators of exploitation or extra-familial risks, particularly indicators of CCE. Consequently, referral information may require intensive manual searches to identify harm.
What were the key mechanisms of change?
The positive early impact of CSE hub work on young people has helped gain further buy-in from senior leaders and practitioners across the service. This has built momentum for implementing CS approaches in other service areas. For example, the CSE hub team are delivering CS training to staff within independent residential homes to support them in identifying signs of exploitation and working with multi-agency partners. The CSE hub is working with youth justice colleagues to understand how young people at risk of exploitation are being responded to in custody settings. Further partnership work with schools is underway as part of service response for missing, through which staff are informed of referrals and provided guidance on identifying signs of EFH among pupils